Each day, thousands of tractor-trailer trucks travel our nation's highways transporting cargo from one location to another. Trucking companies, who are responsible for making sure the cargo reaches its intended destination on time, need the ability to track the status of the cargo throughout its journey. The trucking companies need to be able to monitor the status of a trailer from the time it is loaded with cargo, as it travels to its destination, after it reaches its destination, and after its cargo is unloaded. As the trucking companies add more and more trailers to their fleets, it is becoming more difficult to monitor the status of each trailer.
Prior asset tracking systems, which have depended primarily on the actions of drivers and dispatchers to report and track the status of the cargo and trailer, have been lacking in their effectiveness. Even prior automated tracking systems have not adequately monitored the status of trailers once the trailers have been dropped off at a destination.
What is needed, therefore, is a new and innovative approach to monitoring and reporting the status of mobile assets, such as trailers and their valuable cargo.